Cairo Journal; For Women Only: A Train Car Safe From Men

By ALAN COWELL, Special to The New York Times

Published: January 15, 1990

CAIRO, Jan. 13—
When the idea was first put into effect on Cairo's rapid transit system, some said it would mean the creation of a kind of harem on wheels. Others said it just wouldn't work.

But, two months later, according to the authorities, a plan to set aside one car on each train in the subway solely for women is making notable gains in protecting women from one of Cairo's unrelenting perils, sexual harassment of women by men on overcrowded public transport.

Built in the late 1980's at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, the Cairo subway is one of the city's few obvious success stories: it works, it is generally clean and it is quiet - attributes not usually associated with the Egyptian capital, or with rapid transit in many other places.

''It is a sign of civilization, and matchless in the Middle East,'' proclaimed The Egyptian Gazette, an English-language paper. Indeed, the system, which runs from north to south, mostly above ground although it ducks briefly below the city center, is said to be the only one of its kind in the Middle East and all Africa.

City of Traffic Torment

The line was opened in 1987, linking three miles of subway to existing above-ground tracks, part of a project designed to provide a 26-mile link along the East Bank of the Nile. Created largely with French aid, it has cost $370 million so far. By the time it is complete, the whole project should cost $560 million.

Its first years in operation, however, have been ambiguous. In impoverished Egypt, the 10-cent fare for an average inner-city ride is roughly three times the bus fare. And, while it offers passengers much speedier transit, it has not yet noticeably achieved its aim of drastically reducing traffic above ground, which continues in a state of permanent tangle.

When the subway opened, it was estimated that each day a half million cars, cabs and minibuses competed above ground with 2,300 buses and a tram line for space on streets filled with millions of pedestrians in the largest city to be found in Africa or the Middle East. The subway was supposed to reduce above ground traffic by 75 percent.

Since then, however, traffic congestion has gotten worse, even though the subway carries an estimated 20,000 commuters in each direction every hour from early morning until late at night. And it is guarded by a special police unit that keeps the stations free of litter-droppers, muggers, vandals or scrawlers of graffiti.

The Place of Women

Lately, the subway police have assumed another task: telling men not to board the first car of any train.

The segregation of the subway cars is part of a larger issue about the difficult position of those Egyptians who seek a new status for women in a society that is being pushed toward an older doctrine of female subservience by a revival of Islamic fervor.

''Nasser gave women the vote'' in 1956, said Mona Makram-Ebeid, a senior member of the opposition Wafd party. ''Now, with this obscurantist movement, women are keen on keeping what advantages they have.''

''The Islamic movement makes the accusation that women are invading public space and should be at home with their children,'' she said. ''It argues that the women's place is not in public life, not to be seen but to be a specator.''

The Debate Rages

Such complaints are becoming increasingly frequent among well-educated women, responding to male assertions that women going to work are a prime source of congestion on public transport and joblessness among men.

But the segregated subway cars offer a more abstract issue: to what extent should women be given greater rights than men to protect them from male misbehavior in what is still a male-dominated society.

''Since women have called for equality with men in all spheres of life, it is natural that she should fight like him for an empty seat,'' The Egyptian Gazette said in an article setting out the debate.

Thuraya Labna, a feminist member of the Egyptian Parliament, who is credited with first proposing the idea of a segregated car, maintained that levels of sexual harassment were so high on public transport that women needed safe places to travel. Return to Segregation? But that drew a response from another commentator in The Egyptian Gazette, who said segregation in subway cars ''pulls us back to the dark ages of segregation and even humiliates our women, treating them as weak and subordinate.''

Down below ground, the verdict, apparently, is not yet in.

As a train drew into a station in Cairo's city center recently, a newswoman joined the women in the segregated car, and took a sampling of opinion. ''I think it is a very nice idea,'' said a woman in the distinctive attire of rural Egypt. ''But we were never harassed on the Metro like we were on the buses.'' The buses, where travelers have as much space as sardines in a can, are much cheaper than the subway, but riding them can be very unpleasant, many women say.

A friend then contributed to the debate, saying that the trains stop at each station for such a brief period that the most any passenger, male or female, can hope to do is to scramble for a seat, in whatever car is available.

Complaints From Men

Then, a male reporter took a sampling in one of the eight non-segregated cars. Maybe it was fine for unaccompanied daughters and wives to be protected, some men said. But how come, the reporter was asked, men couldn't use the segregated car - even when it was empty - and had to cram into the other non-segregated cars while women could use any of them?

Mohammed Mabrouk Abu el Einin, the subway's Head of Operations, had his own views.

''We are the ones who initiated the idea of seeking the comfort of our women, and I think we were right,'' he said.

''I think the idea is a success. You can go down the Metro and see that the women's cars are always full of women. I think the percentage of success is about 90 per cent,'' he continued. ''What is said about a harem on wheels is not true. We only seek the comfort of our daughters and wives.''

photo: Women in a segregated subway car in Cairo. To help reduce sexual harassment of women by men on overcrowded public transportation, the first car of each train is now reserved for women only. (NYT/Ingeborg Lippmann)